It’s Your Serve (Prayer, part 2)

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Last week we talked about prayer being like a tennis match. You hit the ball over the net, Papa God hits it back. Over and back. Over and back.

You know, the truly amazing part is that Papa God wants to play with us at all. I mean, He certainly doesn’t have to. He could just rush the net and smash, smash, smash every shot. But instead He chooses to rally.

Just think of it: the creator of the universe actually desires to spend time listening to us. And responding.

Doesn’t it blow your mind that He wants to hear our deepest thoughts, feelings, disappointments, yearnings, wishes, and dreams when most of the other flesh and blood people-creations like ourselves don’t seem to care? Even with the entirety of creation demanding His attention, the Almighty takes a personal interest in you … and me.

Whoa. Hard to wrap your head around, isn’t it? Such a compliment. Such an honor.

Yet we sometimes consider prayer a chore … something nearly forgotten that we need to squeeze in before we fall asleep so we don’t feel guilty. Or maybe we’re just so busily preoccupied with living our life that prayer is reduced to cougar-on-a-ski-slope desperation tweets to NeedGodNOW.com. (Yep, the cougar thing actually happened to me.)

I’ve found it enormously helpful to keep a mobile prayer list of people and needs I want to pray about. Mine’s a little pocket-sized pad that travels with me. I find it especially handy in my car – my rolling cathedral – so I can pray instead of scream at red lights and traffic jams. Much more productive on several levels.

I highly recommend it.

But if you do, be sure to record the answers to your prayers as well, so you’ll never again doubt that prayer is the nerve that moves the muscles in the hand of God.